I have had a very difficult few years. Loss of employment and illness have of course lead to my financial collapse. My life had gotten so out of control that suicide looked like my only option.

I have been overly blessed with an awesome group of friends. All of them are helping me get through this dark time of my life. Support has come in so many different forms, spiritual, emotional, financial, medical and even just a shoulder.

They are the reason why I am here to write this blog today!

I think today we all know someone with a story so similar to my own. Well I just found out today that one of my friends and his family are about to lose their home. This family has been one of MY major supporters over the past few years. My friend lost his job as of January 1st due to down sizing and has been unable to find work. He did find a part time job, but it is commissioned based insurance that people cannot afford to purchase right now. His wife is employed full time but does not bring home nearly enough to maintain their household. Their 12 year old son has had to give up his sports due to the cost. This is breaking my heart but what can I do? I am having weekly yard sales just to pay my electric bill. So this is what I have come up with......

Helping Hands PartyLite Party. I will be taking all of my commission from this party and PAYING IT FORWARD to help a family in dire need.

You can help! If you live in the United States you can join this party. Simply take a look at my website, www.partylite.biz/judekelly and place an order. Use 'Helping Hands' as your hostess so that your order will be helping someone in need. Check out September Guest Rewards for items as low as $2.00. Please check off to have your order sent to your home or it will be sent to the hostess.

Wait who is the hostess???? Best Part! One lucky customer of this party will become the Mystery Hostess and get all of the hostess benefits, once the party reaches $250 in sales. That is a minimum of $130.00 in FREE products along with other offers.

Will you help please??

Stock up on some fall/holiday fragrances for your home. Get some holiday gifts for family and friends. All while helping a wonderful family who may not be able to celebrate the holidays in their home this year without this help!!

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Why is this important to know? Well, it is the reason why we seem to not be able to smell our favorite fragrance today when we just used it yesterday. Our noses adapt to scents and adjust to them so that they don't smell them anymore. We simply get used to it.

Using different scents every day keep our noses from that adaptation. That doesn't mean that you have to change your reed diffuser oil every day. That would be just silly. Try adding a complementary scent in a candle. ex. If your favorite diffuser oil is SeaSalt and Driftwood, you could complement that with a Twilight Sea candle one day and maybe an Amber Wood and Vanilla the next. This will keep your nose enjoying the fragrance of your home every day! :)

Need to add more scents to your home? Check out all the different scents I have to offer you. Invent your favorite combinations for your home.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

I know this may some what of a duplicate post, but I found this picture that tells a wonderful story.

Has this ever happened to you??

What caused this disaster?

Plain and Simple, the jar cracked!!

Now why did the jar crack? Well high heat will crack glass. The person who was burning this candle did NOT cut their wick. How do I know this, well look at that massive build-up of soot at the top of the candle. This can totally be prevented by simply trimming your wick to 1/4 inch.

There are a few things that you need to consider when purchasing and burning jar candles.

1) Shape of the jar.

Notice the top of this jar. It has a pretty abrupt curve inward. At the top of this curve is almost a flat area, not completely, but almost. This shape is in many of your less expensive candles. This shape however holds in the heat! Heat gets trapped under the curve, heating the glass.

2) Length of Wick

It is so important to trim your wick at EACH lighting!! I have already said this a few times. What I may not have said is that it is important for you to check your wick while burning your candle. If your wick gets long while burning, snuff your candle, trim your wick, let the wax harden a bit and then re-light your candle. A long wick adds more heat then the candle holder may be able to handle.

3) Type of Wax

There are several types of wax used in making candles. Some that you may know are soy, paraffin, gel and beeswax. Some you may not know are bayberry wax, carnuba, ceresine and tallow. Each of these waxes have a different melting temperatures. Therefore the wick of these different wax candles will burn at different rates. A wax with a high degree melt temperature may keep the wick shorter for a longer length of time due to the solid wax surrounding it. Where as a wax with a low degree melt temperature will liquefy the wax quicker exposing more of the wick to burn increasing the heat inside of the jar.

4) Type of wick

Yes you know there are cotton wicks, wicks with lead in the center of them (I do NOT recommend using these), wood wicks and other fibers that may be used. Did you know that there are several grades of each of these wicks. (I have to say here that I can only speak as to what PartyLite's wick practices are. I do not know first had of other candle manufactures) A wick needs to be specific to the candle, not just the size of the candle, but the composition of the candle. PartyLite uses over 100 different wicks in their candles. For example purposes here lets talk about a single wick jar candle. A larger jar candle would need a larger wick then a smaller jar candle. Picture the wick on a birthday candle vs. the wick on your dinner table taper candles. The type of was also determines the size of the wick due to melting temperatures. Additives also need to be considered when choosing the best wick. Some coloring or essential oils used in making candles will change the melting temperature of the candle. Therefore a Passion Fruit jar candle may have a different wick as a Plum Pleasure jar candle using the same size jar with the same amount of wax.

So you see it is not as easy as going to the store and buying a candle that you feel safe burning in your home. Some things that need to be considered you can see immediately in the store, others you cannot. Here is where that old adage, "You get what you pay for" comes into reality. Like I said before I can only speak for PartyLite candles, but lets think about it. Do you think that the jar candle, or any candle for that matter, that you may buy at the dollar store would have gone through all the testing and made with the same quality as a PartyLite candle (or other major candle manufacturers)???

Since you followed my last tip and only burned your candle 1 hour for each inch in diameter, while you are hugging your candle, the soften wax in the middle will raise up to be the same as the height as the edges, or very close to it.

At this point you can smooth the edges with your thumb to make the top of your candle smooth and even.